Thursday, October 31, 2013

I usually spend the first hour of my day scouring and
learning and reading and annotating from any number of newspapers, blogs and
online publications. By the time I’m done, my desktop is littered with new documents
and ideas and perspective and insight. And my brain is ignited and ready to engage.

I’ve been practicing this daily ritual for about a year now,
and it’s had a huge impact on me, for one simple reason:

I used to view news as
a source information, but now I view it as a source of energy.

First, for me.

Reading it excites the citizen in me because I’m engaging
with what’s going on in the world. Inhaling it expands the thinker in me
because I constantly fill my reservoir with valuable perspective. Documenting
it satisfies the artist in me because I’m making meaning through writing,
organizing and responding to smart ideas.

Then, for others.

Sharing it fulfills the human in me because I’m giving gifts
to people I care about. Discussing it energizes the extrovert in me because I
can contribute to conversations in a valuable way. Referencing it elevates me
as a resource because I can pick from my intellectual inventory at a moment’s
notice and be a resource for others.

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

They’re the ones you don’t even have to ask. The ones who just
want to be part of everything. Whatever you’re doing, whatever you’re thinking,
whatever you’re feeling, they’re happy to be there. Physically, emotionally,
spiritually. On board at a moment’s notice.

The challenge is, you can’t really teach this. Otherliness,
aka, the willingness to join others, is more of a fundamental bent than a
learnable skill.

What you can do is notice it. And celebrate it. And
model it. And understand why it’s valuable. And give thanks to the people who
practice it. And remember what it feels like to be on the receiving end of it.

And over time, a sort of osmosis of the heart happens.

You wake up and realize you’ve become a joiner, too.Someone who believes that saying yes to people is the ultimate love language.

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Writing wasn’t my dream, it was my dominant reality. I can’t
remember not doing it. It was the only territory I could always go to. The only
instrument I could always just play. The one activity that, when I did it, put me back together again. If writing wasn't the answer, I rephrased
the question.

Fortunately, that wiring never changed.

Certainly, what I
write, who I write for, how I write and where I share my writing has changed––and will continue to change
with every phase of life––but ultimately, why
I write will not change.

Because I can’t help myself. What I do is the only thing
that makes sense to me.

The point is, focus isn’t about activity, it’s about
identity.

Gaining complete clarity about who we are, refusing to be
anybody else other than ourselves, embracing our natural inclinations in every
situation and doing the only thing that feels right to us.

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Which is kind of embarrassing when you’re only nineteen and everybody expects
you to be strong and flexible and resilient.

But
your body never bullshits you.

I
remember my low point. Literally and figuratively.

It
was the summer before junior year. Just another night at our house. One minute
I was eating dinner with my family, the next I was incapacitated on the living
room floor with horrible, shooting lumbar pains that felt like an electric
shock.

The
worst part was, my eighty-year old grandfather had to run to the kitchen to
fetch me an ice pack.

Probably
a sign that I needed to make a change.

My
mom, a personal trainer, suggested I start coming with her to the gym to
stretch, strengthen my core muscles and improve my overall posture.

Ugh.
Sounded like work to me. No thank you.

Instead,
I opted for the deep tissue massage. Sixty bucks, sixty minutes, aromatherapy
candles, relaxing music and a cute blonde with strong hands? Felt like the
right choice to me.

Friday, October 18, 2013

Every year, our family has a gift exchange.But it's not the typical snow globes and picture frames
and ugly sweaters. Our tradition is, you have to make your gift. By hand. From
scratch.

What’s beautiful is, every gift is amazing in its own right.
Over the years people have made leather belts, musical instruments, hot sauce
dispensers, custom designed clothing, carry on luggage, even fine art pieces.

Proving that the best way to get the best out of people is not to tell them what to do.

And there’s another lesson. One that our culture seems to
have forgotten.

Gift giving isn’t about finances, it’s about feelings.

It’s the generosity of giving yourself away to someone. It’s
the thoughtfulness of expending intellectual energy for someone. It’s the physicality
of burning real calories on someone. It’s the creativity of expressing yourself
to someone. It’s the humanity of making that gift personal for someone.

And, it’s doing all of that in a manner that’s surprising,
to the point where the recipient looks up in disbelief and wonders, did you do this just for me?

Yes I did.

The point is, people forget flowers.

If you truly want to make a meaningful deposit in someone’s
emotional bank account, you need to throw in more than a few bucks at the corner
store.

Thursday, October 17, 2013

In fact, caring is an understatement. Nametags are an
obsession. A religion. An addiction. A pathological psychosis.

At least that’s what my therapist says.

But here’s the interesting part. A few years into my nametag
crusade, once I started caring and believing and committing to this thing that was
meaningful to me––even if it was
mundane to the rest of the world––people started listening. Oh, they could play
as tough as they wanted, but eventually, they paid attention.

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Where else can you find such timely, honest and accurate insight
into the user experience? Where else can you gain such an intimate perspective
about what really happens in a store, at a home or on a job site?

Recommendation websites are veritable smorgasbords for
cutting straight to the heart of the many problems customers are waking up with
every morning.

I just read two pages of angry reviews from customers of a
landscaping company. Fascinating stuff. One woman said she sent five emails and
still couldn’t get through to
schedule an estimator to come to her house.

That’s huge.

Because once we have the problems, the real work can begin.

By defining the problems, we’re forcing our brains to flex the
muscle that solves them. We’re unlocking our ability to think without thinking.
It’s just how we’re wired. Humans can’t think about problems without thinking
about solutions.

Which means, we’re free to solve the problems clients can’t
see past. We can spend two hours on a review website blowing our own minds.

Because we’re not encumbered by the day to day things that create
those problems in the first place.

If I was trying to approach that industry as an innovator or
supplier or consultant or vendor, that’s where I would start.

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Home is the place where my soul restsWhere I am rooted and not dilutedWhere I feel respect
Home where I'm met with accepting eyesWhere I am welcomed with wanting armsWhere I let the blood dry
Home is the place that remembers meWhere all the mirrors undress the fearsWhere I feel pretty
Home where I'm Where I meet new sinsAnd the old ones I forget
Home is the place where my ship wrecksWhere all my bosses are not my crossesBreathing down my neck
Home where I remember whatWho I was before you said I'm not enough

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Teenagers from all around the world would gather in Geneva, bunk up with
complete strangers and spend two weeks hiking, canyoning, running team exercises,
learning problem solving skills and taking workshops on personal development.

Pretty cool stuff.

Made the summer camp I went to look like a chemistry class.

I remember my first year there. The camp director explained
that my role was more than just leading a few workshops, but being a resource for
the students.

Not a counselor or a staff member or a supervisor or an
instructor.

A resource.

Their philosophy was, being a leader meant being a pointer. Somebody
you could tap on the shoulder, spend five minutes with, and walk away from with
a wealth of assets to support your journey. Somebody who opened up their
schedule, opened up their heart, even opened up their entire mental reservoir, on
a moment’s notice.

Interestingly, the term resource
stems from two French words. One meaning, “the spring,” and the other meaning,
“rises again.”

It was the first thing I gave everything to, and the first
thing that gave everything to me. The two of us were absolutely faithful
to each other. We were inseparable. You couldn’t tell where the
company ended and I began.

Which was professionally helpful, but psychologically
hazardous.

Because as with any first love, our flame slowly started to
fade.

I was changing. She was changing. The world around us was
changing. And both of us knew we were starting to outgrow the relationship.

So I freaked out.

This wasn’t just a breakup, this was an identity crisis.

And that’s the danger of throwing your heart into something
and letting it become all you stand for. The moment it slips away, panic
settles in.And you start wondering
to yourself,what am I supposed to do
when the best part of me was always you?

Identity diversification, that’s what.

Become more than what you’re known for. Live larger than
your labels. Create a richer repertoire of meaning. Establish an identity
independent of your profession.

Saturday, October 12, 2013

With the production,
I write what I want, when I want and how I want. With the process, I don’t do drafts, I don’t use editors and I’m not
interested in constructive feedback. And with the positioning, I never think about my ideal reader, I don’t care what
will work in the marketplace and I’m not worried about people who don’t get the
joke.

The purpose of creation is liberation. To make something to
call my own. To have a body of work I can point to. One that that nobody can
take away from me.

The most
important word in an artist’s vocabulary may as well be mine.

Being selfish isn’t just our right, it’s our responsibility.

Until the work is done, that is.

Once I press the publish button and ship something out the
door, all that selfishness vanishes like a fart in the wind, and into the jaws
of generosity I go.

A copy of my new book?
You bet. Here, take mine. Take the whole case. Seriously, put your wallet away. Actually, keep it out. I’ll pay you to read it. Twenty dollars sound good?
Thirty? Better make it fifty. Say, can you break a hundred? That’s cool. Just
keep the change.

The second most important word in an artist’s
vocabulary may as well be here.

Friday, October 11, 2013

Pay ourselves in hope till silver crosses our palms Take this poverty of vowSquinting at the mirror just to see if it's safeIt's the stain that won't wash out
Sweet, sweet somethings I Repeat on this salty nightSweet, sweet somethings I Repeat on this salty night
Hanging all our fortunes not on chanceMaking friends before we make requestsAnd we will go and eat the world if we canTo feed this starving artist bent
Sweet, sweet somethings I Repeat on this salty nightSweet, sweet somethings I Repeat on this salty night
Set our palms against the stoneThese two hearts are not aloneProtect us from what we wantAll them statues shooting up
Sweet, sweet somethings I Repeat on this salty nightSweet, sweet somethings I Repeat on this salty night"Sweet Somethings" can be found on my fifth album, Let The City Crumble.

Thursday, October 10, 2013

When you’re genetically wired for hard work, the hardest
thing to do is nothing.

The opposite of ambition. The antithesis of labor.

Idleness. Blech.

But just like in yoga––where the posture you hate the most is the posture you need the most––I figured doing nothing was the right move.

But not before doing a little research.

Sabbatical comes from the word sabbath, meaning day of rest.
Figured. But the word also dates back to ancient agriculture. Mosaic law
decreed that on the seventh year, a farmer’s land was to remain untilled while debtors
and slaves were to be released.

Maybe that’s what I needed. To leave the land
alone. To emancipate myself as a slave to achievement.

So last year, I decided to do nothing. For three straight months.

No working. No writing.
No marketing. No strategizing. No nothing.

Just a lot of sleeping, a lot of walking, a lot of reading,
a lot of singing and a lot of traveling. And cookies. Oh man were there
cookies.

And it turns out, for someone who’s happiest when he’s
productive and prolific, for someone who’s wired to find satisfaction by adding
value through toil, taking a sabbatical was the best thing I could have done.
By the time summer was over, I was rejuvenated and equipped for the next
chapter of life.

But after a while, introspection reaches a point of diminishing returns. And we end up sitting in a corner perfecting ourselves, trapped in our own heads, bouncing our thoughts off a thin
wall, playing a never-ending game
of inside baseball.

Sounds
like a good time to stop introspecting and start interacting.

Humans, after all, understand the self in the context of
other people. We regulate our emotions and
understand the world by connecting with others. So if we truly want the highest
understanding of who we are, eventually, we have to reach for someone else.

When
we co-create with someone, we expand our brain's repertoire and get new wiring
out of it.

Tuesday, October 08, 2013

I just watched this video of a toddler discovering his shadow
for first time.

Awwwwww. I nearly
choked by his adorableness.

But then, my hamster wheel started turning.

With million views, thousands of likes, hundreds of
comments and dozens of articles written about this viral video, I knew there
had to be a deeper layer of meaning. The cute factor may be hard to resist, but
we can’t deny that something more interesting is going on here.

Devin’s shadow is a perfect example that we can’t run from
who we are.

Our identity chooses us, not the other way around. No matter
how hard we work to kick nature out, our truest self will still bubble up the
surface.

Online. Offline. At work. At home. In the community. We
can’t help but be ourselves.

Monday, October 07, 2013

Fundamentally affirmative personalities who respond to others
with of constant chorus of yeses. Relentless encouragers whose immediate
optimism makes the people around them think to themselves, I believe in this, I can do this, I’m ready to try this.

That’s why it’s so hard for me to wrap my head around
negativity. It doesn’t compute with my biology. When I encounter people whose
native wiring is to soil conversations with shit, they might as well be speaking
another language.

I guess I understand the allure. Negativity is easy to find,
easy to dispense and even easier to rally people around. And resisting the pull
of that force is no easy task.

But ninety percent of life is doing things that aren’t easy.And our attitudes shouldn’t be any different.

Sunday, October 06, 2013

Motivation doesn't happen to us, it happens in us.If there's something we need to discipline ourselves to do, it's not a question of making the time to do it. Everybody knows nobody has time for anything.

The secret is creating a rich context of meaning around the activity so it becomes existentially painful not to do it.Dragging our butts out of bed and into the gym is no easy task. But it becomes a lot easier when we change our understanding of what the gym means to us. If we started viewing it as more than just a smelly room to pump iron, maybe we wouldn't hit the snooze button as often.That's how I trick myself into working out everyday. My studio is more than just a place to sweat, it's a center of belonging. A
neighborhood community. It's where I connect with people who have
overlapping value systems.

And that's just externally. Internally, it's
also the place where I work out my emotions, purge my stress and return to center. It's training to handle the demands of life. My studio is anti-depressant that keeps my sanity in tact.Considering that depth of meaning, would you ever want to miss a day?

Thursday, October 03, 2013

“Your culture will kill you softly with its song, and you won’t even notice.” One of the first
lessons I learned from wearing a nametag everyday was, if you don’t make a name
for yourself, someone will make one for you. And it might not be the one you
want.Proving, that identity is a
proactive endeavor. We can’t be bystanders in defining who we are. It’s too
important to leave up to chance. Interestingly, that same lesson could be
applied to organizational culture, but on a larger scale. If we’re not intentional about creating an
environment worth coming to––and passing on––the culture will create itself.
And we’ll lose control of the collective experience of every individual who has
anything to do with us. Because every organization has a culture. The
question is whether it’s alive and breathing, and who’s running the ventilator.

"In that kiss I saw a vision of my future." So many things in life just go away. A prospective client
reaches out, shows an interest in our work, asks tons of questions, requests a
price quote, emails back immediately, gets our hopes up about working together,
and then just magically disappears. No explanation. No apology. No nothing. They
just go away. And despite our follow up efforts, courteous and professional and
persistent as they may be, still nothing. What the hell. You came to me, remember? But that’s just it. Just because she
kissed once doesn’t mean you’re in love forever. That’s good advice for love
and work. Because we can obsess over what went wrong all night. Was it me? Was
it them? Was it technology? But in the end, some things just go away. And although
it’s wildly unsatisfying, although we’d rather hear no than nothing,"The greatest verb might well be earn." Continuity is currency. It’s what earns us the benefit of the doubt when we make
mistakes. Music is the perfect example. Some of my favorite bands, ones
that I’ve been a loyal fan of for decades, occasionally put out a weak album. And
it hurts my ears, but I usually get over it pretty quickly. Because
I know there’s more where that came from. I trust my heroes. I forgive them quickly. They've brought so much joy to my life for so long, and I'm sure they'll be back soon enough. The point is, we should all work toward that level. More than talent and accuracy and perfection, we should all strive for continuity. Because when we're playing every day, we can afford to take shots and miss.